Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne

Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne (23 April 1756-3 June 1819) was a politician of the French Republic who was one of the architects of the Reign of Terror.

Biography
Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne was born on 23 April 1756 in La Rochelle, Kingdom of France. In 1785 he became a lawyer after graduating from oratory school, and in 1790 he joined the Jacobin Club during the French Revolution. During the September Massacres of 1792, he took part in the killing of prisoners in Prison de l'Abbaye along with other radicals. In 1793 Billaud-Varenne became a member of the Committee of Public Safety under Maximilien Robespierre and planned out many projects, including: the formation of a French Revolutionary Army, expulsion of foreigners, a tax on the wealthy, monitoring of officers and nobles, deprivation of citizenship from antisocial people, and the execution of unsuccessful generals. However, despite his Jacobin radical theories, he feared for his own life and later declared Robespierre a moderate and took part in the Thermidorian Reaction of 27 July 1794. For his ruthlessness, he was accused in the National Convention, and he was exiled to French Guiana. He refused a pardon offered by Napoleon Bonaparte and lived in New York City and finally Port-au-Prince, where he died of dysentery in 1816.